


Sad Ghosty Times

by 999blackflowers



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sciencey things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24873562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/999blackflowers/pseuds/999blackflowers
Summary: Shadow Morty is worried about being replaced. Rick is not doing very much to help.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez/Morty Smith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Sad Ghosty Times

**Author's Note:**

> This was a request for twitter user @cactus_creature! Thank you!

Rick swirled a cluster of skin cells on a petri dish, squinting down in the blacklight he’d set in his small lab. He briefly brushed the hair from his eyes and sterilized the little metal prong in a pot of pale pink liquid. He’d engineered it himself to melt away any bacteria or viruses clinging to the aluminum, and thankfully the Citadel Police hadn’t taken it away despite containing traces of one isotope that could be used to make portal fluid. 

He opened a small drawer with a couple of globby test tubes. Rick took it in his gloved hand and grimaced as he saw a rising bubble of air from the bottom. This was a form of ectoplasm, he’d decided. He tipped a glob into the petri dish and watched the two substances with anticipation.

The mess of skin cells lay inert. The plasm bubbled on the dish, not mixing, not merging. It simply lay there. 

“ _ Fuuuck. _ ” Rick flicked a switch to turn the lights back on. This was not the result he was hoping for. To be fair, he hadn’t really had much scientific backup behind this idea. “Collecting… collecting ectoplasm from fuckin’ Morty and putting it against skin cells. That was stupid.” He put a hand to his face, frustrated. The teenager’s ectoplasm regularly touched his own skin and it never merged against him. It didn’t turn him back into skin and bones, it just did nothing. 

Frustrated, Rick left the room in a huff. He slammed the lab door shut and stomped into the rest of the flat, plopping down onto the old sofa and letting himself go limp. He’d lived a long time. He’d had plenty of experience. He’d seen the galaxy and beyond, he’d seen countless galaxies. Yet what he’d done with Morty perplexed him.

He’d come to the Citadel to try and fix it. To see if anyone else had any sort of problems regarding turning an entire human being to something resembling a ghost. Ghosts weren’t real in his dimension. They just weren’t. Others, sure, his home dimension? No.

He had met plenty of Mortys with all sorts of strange problems or modifications. Trunks, messes of genetic splicing…

Zero Rick briefly remembered the time he was visiting the Citadel Beach district and saw a young Morty wearing a crop top and tiny, tiny string panties. That had been a confusing experience. But out of everything, not one  _ ghost Morty problem. _

He felt his head bobbing with frustration until he heard a low buzz from the door. He folded his arms and watched the doorknob open slowly, globs of blobby wet ectoplasm seeping underneath the door. Rick’s eyes went to the window, spotting that the weekly random rain day on the Citadel had been heavier than usual. 

“Morty…”    


The door opened. Morty stood, a haze of transparent shadow at the door. He held a paper bag of groceries in his arms - somewhat stained purple by the wet ectoplasm. Blobs of watery plasm rolled down the boy’s legs and bubbled in a small puddle on the ground.

“Can you shake off your ectoplasm before you come inside, Morty?” Rick took his flask from his coat to uncap. It had become a reflex, but he raised it to his lips only to find it was empty. 

The boy’s frame shifted. He shivered and the excess wet ectoplasm dripped from his legs, and he moved inside. Rick sensed a form of apprehension and sadness from him as he moved - his emotions had been converted from chemical to a sort of metaphysical format that dispersed itself in the air. He watched him drift into the kitchen to drop the groceries and returned to sit on the couch by floating right through the back, perhaps inconsiderably.

“Come on, you’re still wet.”

Morty’s glowing eyes narrowed as he raised his shadowed hands.  _ I am not.  _ He spelled out simply.

Rick’s eyes went up and down the shadowy figure, seeing that indeed there were no further globs of ectoplasm on him. He placed his own hand over Morty’s, his hand slipping through onto the worn couch fabric. Whenever he did this, he always felt a type of numbness or a buzz in his bones. It was the closest he could get to holding his hand.

Morty went to crossing his arms. His eyes turned to the television which flicked on after a particular pattern of blinking as he stared at the sensor. Citadel television was boring and interdimensional cable capable-boxes were difficult to come by. 

It was especially confusing given that all the actors were Ricks and Mortys. The Ricks in drag were quite fun to watch at least. Neither of them had yet to see a Morty that was good at acting. Child actors had those problems, of course. A soap opera faded into a commercial break.

_ HEY, CITIZENS. ARE YOU TIRED OF YOUR SHITTY MORTY? _

_ CALL 0800 394- _

The television shut off. Morty folded his arms and looked towards the ground, dejectedly. He was too tired to sign, but Rick clearly knew what he was thinking. He’d signed it a couple times over to him - slowly and deliberately.

_ I am afraid you are going to replace me for a better- _

He would then cup his face, Citadel sign language for  _ Morty.  _

Rick smoothed his hair back and leaned over closer to the poor ghost. “I’m- I’m not thinking of replacing you, Morty.”

Morty curled into himself and raised his hands to sign again.  _ You might one day. _

Rick frowned until Morty continued.  _ I’m dead. _

“Not really, Morty. You’re like… an exclusive Morty. I can’t find any other Morty like you, baby.” Rick assured him.

_ Broken things are technically exclusive.  _ Morty insisted through signing. Rick frowned and sighed.

“Sometimes it sounds like you don’t want help.” Rick complained. “L-Like, come on.” 

The ghost sat in silence, unmoving. He dipped his head and Rick tried to pat his head slowly. His hand’s presence couldn’t even move the teenager’s ghostly wisps of hair. He leaned in and let the boy’s presence wash through his bones. It was unpleasant, but it was something he wanted to do for the poor thing. He turned away and somehow repelled Rick’s mass out and away from his shadows.

Rick ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh until Morty began to sink into the floor. He did this when he was upset and didn’t want to be seen or talked to. He vanished without a sound. He fucked up.

He rose to his feet and wandered back into the laboratory, deciding he may as well clean up if he wasn’t going to interact with the poor ghost. As he swung open the door to his lab and clicked on the lights, his eyes going to the petri dish he’d set out.

Something was shifting on it. Rick moved forwards towards it to stare down into the dish, his eyes widening. Hurrying forwards, he witnessed that the two substances were indeed reacting.

It was different than what he expected. A thin film had begun to form atop the substance. 

Perhaps irresponsibly, he dunked his fingers in the goo and pulled them out to find a thin slimy film had wrapped itself around his fingertips. It gently buzzed with energy. Experimentally, he tried to smear more over his fingers but found the ectoplasm responded to his touch, pushing itself down.

“Breakthrough.” Rick snapped his bony fingers in glee. 

He made the decision to hurry outside to scoop up the ectoplasm right off the doorstep, realizing quickly he’d need to grab even more of his own skin cells to make this plan work. The process would be unpleasant, but worth it in the end.

Several hours passed before Morty felt safe to rise from the floor again where he’d been laying between the carpet and the ceiling of the lower apartment block. He’d dipped down there a few times and got yelled at by three Ricks who lived there. He suspected they might be a three-way couple.

The apartment was quiet and he perhaps wondered if his Rick had left to go drinking. It was the early hours of the morning, so he hoped not. He had his work to go to tomorrow. He passed through the sofa and the kitchen island bench to attempt opening the fridge. Sometimes he liked to snack on whatever Rick had assuming he could manipulate his matter enough to grab it and stuff it into his maw. 

Sticking his head and a shadowy hand into the fridge, he heard a voice behind him.

“HEY! MORTY!”

Morty would pull himself out of the fridge, but found himself yanked out instead. Being pulled was a distinctly unfamiliar sensation. Yet it was warm. A thin film- He turned his head around to see Rick covered in some sort of thin slime, grinning and holding him.

“Look what your grandpa figured out, baby!” Rick squeezed him tight. Somehow he felt it, his ghostly stomach pressing inwards. His warmth was so unfamiliar, so welcome. He missed this feeling. Morty leaned against the man and melted against him.

Raising his hands, he tried to sign something in the air in front of Rick’s eyes. The warmth was allconsuming, all he could’ve ever wanted.

_ I love you. _

“And your grandpa loves you back, Morty. No matter what.” Rick assured him. Morty shuffled around in his arms to bury his face in his chest. He wanted to savour this moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you enjoyed, feel free to follow me over at @charredpage on Twitter. I don't post much rickorty these days but I do RT it on occasion. Have a lovely day!


End file.
